But what if your goal is to shuffle for about ten seconds? This is revolutionary stuff.

no. its evolutionary

The pain that hurts the worse is the imagined pain. One of the most difficult arts of racing is learning to ignore the imagined pain and just live with the present pain (which is always bearable.) - Jeff

Hey, thanks! This was quite entertaining. We can take some interesting observations from this pricelss clip;

* I counted 37 steps in a 15 seconds clip. That's just an approximate number--I simply counted and he wasn't even going at "7MPH" in the beginning either. But at any rate, so that means he was moving at approximately 2.5 steps per second. In order to move at 7MPH, you have to be moving, that means you have to be moving at 3.13m per second speed. That means your each stride would have to be 125cm, of approximately 4 feet long. Looking at a triangle of his legs and stride length, although jester seems to have very long legs, his legs would have to be about 5 or 6 feet long for those stride length to be 4-foot long.

* He has a "walking" form of, what Arthur Lydiard would describe, "sitting in a bucket". I don't know about walking, but certainly not a textbook running form. That, and along with slightly hunched-back shoulders and looking down...well... Not a pretty sight. His form reminds me a lot of actually some of Noh actors and actresses. They don't move their arms when they move forward. They use what they call "sliding" foot technicue where they hardly lift their foot off the floor and their knees always bent. With thick kimono, basically, the idea is to make yourself look like you are not even moving. This kimono tradition was to be blamed, back in the 1970s and 1980s, when Japanese runners weren't performing well at all. The idea of T&F, or running events, is to move from point A to point B as fast as you can. Conserving energy may help but it's NOT the end objective.

* It looks as though he's really TRYING not to move his arms to make his point but, because of the speed at which he's moving, sort of hard not to. This makes it looks rather awckward and unnatural. I still think the best part is the assistant, or whoever is filming, says: "But your arms are swinging though..." Probably should have rehearsed what to say and what not to say. Also, probably would have been a good idea to find someone who knows about videl-taping--when using a video camera, it's not like a regular photograph camera; if you tilt it sideway for a vertical image, the whole image will be tilted sideway!!

* This arm-swing becomes even more apparent with the girl in the T-Rex walk clip. It looks like she's really trying not to swing her arm and that actually creates even more tention and seemingly making her to swing her arm SIDE-WAY instead. That creates her feet to criss-cross as she walks; which is quite opposite of jester's theory about walking on a straight line on the masking tape clip.

* This one IS actually an interesting one. I think you should run on a single line. However, in the world of sprinting, things are changing now. Due to the quick turn-over of their legs, most of them now do, whether intentionally or naturally, two-center-line technique. I remember, back in 1983, when they started World Track & Field Championships in Helsinki, Carl Lewis was a star athlete and there was a picture of him winning 100m on the front cover of either Sports Illustrated or T&F News. I remember his foot was touching not on the center line but, I forgot which side it was, I think it was his left foot and his left foot was landing slightly off to the left. THere's a beautiful image of Lewis winning 1984 LA Olympic 100m in one of those Bud Greenspan footage--slow-motion and, about 70m into the race, he's already celebrating with a big smile... But you can tell his feet are creating 2 lines instead of one. This is quite common today; if you watch Usain Bolt from the front, his foot prints would create 2 lines. Yet, their upper body won't sway; they are perfectly still. And THAT is only made possible with the opposite torque action created somewhere else in the body. You try to run on 2 lines like these guys without moving your amrs...that would be some interesting sight.

* Now digressed a little; but one other fault is that, as you try to walk on one line, your foot would naturally turn slightly outward. This is because your foot doesn't actually follow a straight line from the center of your heel to the center of your toes. As shown in jester's video, he's putting the "index" toe, if we call it that, as the middle toe. Actually, most of us, not all, "push-off" with big toe and the base of the big toe. This is why the big toe is, well, BIG and there's a huge chunk of whatever it is at the base of the big toe. That's because that's where yo push-off and you get the most force. So the actul fact is; you land pretty much the center of your feel when walking (some may even argue that because of our anatomical position of the hip) and, as our foot rolls along the outside of the foot (because of the arch) and the force actually goes through at the end of this pattern to the tip of our BIG TOE. I'm sure Nike must have shown it to jester when he was invited to Nike lab; we all have seen that image of where the force runs through on the bottom of our foot; the red part, the biggest force, won't go through the tip of our second or third toe, it goes through the tip of our big toe.

Considering our (human) only broke the 7.5MPH barrier in the 50k race walk in the mid-1960s and now it's barely 8.6MPH, jester's idea of "easily" walking 8.5MPH for 3 days with 140 pounds on the back would be readily welcome among the countries like China, Russia and Mexico where race walk actually is a big event. Otherwise, we'll be seeing a bunch of Navy SEAL guys winning medals in the international T&F competition in the race-walk events.

So what happened to the show-down between Srlopez and jester over, what was it, 100 miles? I'm still waiting for it. Can I bet my money on Sirlopez? Is ther a pole going on somewhere?

Sports Jester is correct when saying that I did mention that I had switched to forefoot strike. Thank you, Jester, for the link, the topic deserves a special consideration, but as I mentioned above, I had problems with my knee and this means that going back to heel striking is just out of question for me. Perhaps, I can decrease my HR by changing the running form, but my question was rather is it possible to gain anything by putting so little efforts into the training. The answer seems to be yes, even though the specific HR varies significantly for various runners. Moreover, there is no reliable method to calculate the exact HR corresponding to maximum aerobic function.

This begs for another question. 10 bpm more or less — is it important? How precise should the measurements be? If I use the Maffetone formula, overestimate my fitness and add 5 to 137 (180-43) instead of subtracting, how would that affect my results?

Sorry, Dmitri, that we've digressed so much!!

As far as I'm concerned, the most important thing about HR is your morning HR and how it's changed throughout your program. It is probably THE most effective stress indicator. As far as HR during the exercise, there are way too many variables that it's hard to be too precise and accurate. The only way to be precise would be, once a month or so, get on a track and run, say, 2 miles (8 laps) in the same time every time. I don't know what your level is but, say, let's give some bogus number of 16-minutes (8-minute mile pace to make it easier). So each time, you keep it to the same lap time of 120-second per lap. Immdeiately after the run, you check your HR. I believe MAF would do the similar test run throughout the program??? As you get fitter, your HR should come down, doing the same kind of a run. Of course, it wouldn't have to be 2 miles, it can be 2000m (5 laps) or whatever. The same strategy was employed by Finland's Lasse Viren. He would do a 3k time test every month; in the same time, no faster or no slower, and check his HR immediately afterwards.

So what happened to the show-down between Srlopez and jester over, what was it, 100 miles? I'm still waiting for it. Can I bet my money on Sirlopez?

+100

zonykel

posted: 7/24/2011 at 11:29 PM

AKTrail, thanks for the response.

According to the Maffetone 180 formula, I should be running at 141 bpm. That means I have to walk when going up hill. It's quite a humbling experience to realize I don't have an aerobic base, and that I've been training too fast up until now. Well, at least the slow down should help me reduce some of my injuries. (As a side note, when going down hill, I couldn't reach 141 bpm, which I suppose it's good. I didn't want to go too fast and then get an injury going downhill).

Also tried to figure out my max heart rate doing 4 hill repeats. Don't think I got to my max heart rate, but it's probably pretty close. I got 178 bpm after my last hill repeat. So 75% of 178 is 133.5, which is even lower than the Maffetone formula. I'd have to walk more than run!

What is the best way to determine your max heart rate? I am 40, so the simple calculation is 220 - 40 = 180.
However, whether I run hills repeats, races, or intervals I can never get above 163-165. Is that just my max or am I not pushing hard enough?

2015 Goals

2500 miles

Enjoy my first Boston Marathon

5k - 19:30

10k - 40:30?

21k - 1:29:59

Dimitri Minaev

posted: 7/25/2011 at 7:13 AM

I wonder what this max HR figure really means? I've noticed that even during not too fast runs my HR may peak to values around 220-230. I understand that I, probably, should not run like this, but how does it correlate with the theoretical maximum heart rate?

I wonder what this max HR figure really means? I've noticed that even during not too fast runs my HR may peak to values around 220-230. I understand that I, probably, should not run like this, but how does it correlate with the theoretical maximum heart rate?

This is much more likely the result of a bad signal from the chest strap due to poor conductivity with the skin, than it is due to real HR.

"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand

What is the best way to determine your max heart rate? I am 40, so the simple calculation is 220 - 40 = 180. However, whether I run hills repeats, races, or intervals I can never get above 163-165. Is that just my max or am I not pushing hard enough?

In my opinion the best way is to not use max heart rate, but rather use lactate threshold heart rate, which can be tested for relatively easily.

I'm curious what you mean by that? Do you think triathletes are more into measuring things such as heart rate than runners?

From personal observation, yes. I think there are a few reasons:

1) The bike - you can get a lot of data relating to performance when on a bike, assuming the right equipment (which also, I believe, leads most triathletes to become very gear/tech-oriented). Having a wealth of data in one area leads many to want the same wealth of data in other areas.

2) The swim - swimming is extremely technique-oriented, so a common approach is to apply technique-base training to other sports as well. Running is not technique-oriented, so they try to compare apples to oranges, and want a consistent metric regarding the work they do, so they try to use heart rate.

3) Time - when you have three sports to train, and a limited amount of time to train in, most people will want to maximize bang for their buck. This desire tends to lead people to using some quantifiable, measurable metric that seems to be independent of personal bias to make sure they are indeed maximizing their training.

Obviously, not every triathlete is all that into these sorts of things, and there are obviously runners who tend to geek out on data moreso than others, but I have seen a distinct trend that seems more pronounced in the triathlon community than in the running community (but still exists) that tends towards finding gear that will attempt to make the most out of training.